Actions I Need Others to Complete
 

So I've been trying to GTD for a year and a half (sheesh!), and the work flow is in a constant state of flux. New Year, New Flow, blah blah blah. Anyway, I'm a bit confused as to what to do in the following situation.

I'm working on a project, but I can't move forward until someone else gives me something. They've promised it by a certain time, at which point I can move on. What is the most useful way to fit this into OF. Is the action "get item from person"? Is it "E-mail person to remind them to get me something"? What would the context be? Is it not even an action because I'm not the one doing it. Even if that's true, it's important that I remember to get it, right?

I guess, what have you all found is the best way in OF to keep yourself reminded of such things. Thanks so much.

Suppose I was waiting on TPS Reports from Alice. Further suppose that I thought that I should give her 5 days to get back to me before hassling her with a reminder.

In that case, I'd put an action, "From Alice, TPS reports," in my "Awaiting" context with a due date 5 days hence. If that action came due and Alice still hadn't come through—I'd notice this in the morning when scanning my tasks due today—then I'd add a new task to email Alice. (Or call her, or discuss the issue in our regular meeting, or fling a rock with a note through her window, etc.)

A quick way to add that new task is to double click the handle next to the "From Alice, TPS reports" action. That would open the project containing that action in a new window, with the action selected. Shift-Return would create a new action above the original action. I'd create my new action and remove the due date from the old action.

A search on the forums will yield a bunch of other approaches to this. Mine works for me, because it's lightweight and gives people the benefit of the doubt. I don't need to establish complicated protocols to make sure the follow-up happens. Most people come through with what is expected. If not, I stop relying on them.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Curt

Thanks! I'll try that.

Yeah, as a freelance editor, sometimes I can't just drop a client when they don't provide elements on time. ;) I'll have to nudge away in the meantime.

So yeah, my goal is going to be whip contexts into shape. Mine are a bit unreliable and redundant with my project lists. Good ideas here.

My flow is similar to Cliffs. I use a Waiting context that is on hold (pretty much the out of the box one). If there are items that I need to do but can't do them until I get something from someone else, I create a sequential action group in the project. I place the action 'Guy to give me the whachahoosit' in the waiting context and at the top of the action group. All the stuff that I can't do till I get the whatchahoosit goes after it. It keeps the items out of my actionable lists and I think it represents the situation quite well. I am able to add other actions to the project while I'm still waiting on someone. Works well for me.

Delegating tasks to other people
 

Hi!
I know I'm a bit late to aswer to this thread but although I use OmniFocus since it's beta this is the first time I visit the forum.
Ever since I wondered what the Mail feature was good for. Sending myself emails to make them become tasks in OmniFocus seems totally weird to me (when you have an iPhone). Nevertheless I inspected the Mail workaround closely an then I found I could change it to send my spouse emails to create tasks in her inbox. This of course works the same for other people who use omnifocus. My new workflow uses the the subject rather than the email address to decide if it is sent to omnifocus. The underlying AppleScript has to be changed a bit to make this work. What do you think?